


Before I Fall (Touchpoints) -- [Otayuri!]

by SofiyatheGreatish



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: ALL THE TAGS AND MORE TO COME, Angst, Backstory, But not between the mains, Character Development, Coping with feelings, Cultural Differences, DJ Otabek Altin, Family backstory angst, First Love, Insecure Yuri Plisetsky, Kissing, M/M, Miscommunication, Motorcycles, Otabek has a little sister, Protective Otabek Altin, Romance and Fluff, Self-Discovery, Slightly AU - Family Stuff, Slow Burn, Welcome to the Madness (Yuri!!! on Ice), healthy relationship, more kissing, otayuri - Freeform, smol angry yuri, some violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-10-28 07:57:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10827084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SofiyatheGreatish/pseuds/SofiyatheGreatish
Summary: "Something fundamental was happening and Yuri had no idea what it was, but it made him feel powerful. Not powerful like he did when he was skating, but… powerful. The way he’d always imagined that gripping a gold medal after the Grand Prix Final would have felt."Post-season setting where Yuri and Otabek begin to explore their feelings for one another in parallel- or perhaps in line with- their lives as skaters.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Touchpoints.
> 
> *Upfront*: Slight cannon divergence because one, well, it’s an AU and two, I’m imagining “Welcome to the Madness” as a new program of Yuri’s rather than his exhibition skate.
> 
> I’d like to dedicate this fic to a few people because they’re the ones who inspired me so hard that I’m trying to write again for the first time in literal years (so forgive some of the mistakes and my stubbornness in not following common writing conventions). 
> 
> The first is the incredible author Phyona who initially set me out on this path when I read “Nerve Endings” (check it out –here- http://archiveofourown.org/works/9001282/chapters/20554537), which is so beautifully, deeply written that it has become a concrete part of my personal canon. (In fact! The first chapter takes place interlocked with the banquet as written in Nerve Endings, woohoo!) I seriously cannot say enough good things about the author, their eloquence in writing, and the realistic, mutli-dimensional way in which they write about Yuuri and Victor. If you haven’t read their story yet, you’re doing yourself a disservice.
> 
> Second and third are Nikkiyan and Tecochet(look ‘em up!), respectively, whose art is also a permanent part of my Otayuri head-canon. Because seriously we NEED to see the type of sceens that they gorgeously illustrate (it gives the fandom life) and Otabek having a little sister freaking –kills- me. Not saying that there aren’t a bajillion good YOI artists out there. There are! These two just hit Otayuri right on the money for me.
> 
> The last… is a mystery! But here you go! Enjoy, folks. I effing love this fandom and all of the people in it, so I’ll shut up now and give you want you want. <3
> 
> Love, Sofiya.

It was enough that Yuri had to attend the banquet. Much less dress up for it. The suit he wore felt stiff and the Russian’s initial movements showed it; he stalked into the post-GPF gala 30 minutes late, aggressively unapologetic for his tardiness. Truth be told, Yuri was here for two, well, three reasons.

The first being that Yakov and Lilia had essentially threatened him should he not show up, being that a gold-winner had a practical obligation to social niceties following a win. Secondly, Yuri low-key hoped for somewhat of a rehash of last year’s debauchery. As horrifying as Katsudon’s performance had been at the end, it was a welcome invitation to talk to less people and actually –do- something.

And third, Otabek had promised he’d be there, and the thought of Yuri’s closest (only) friend trying to wade through small talk was worth seeing.  So Yuri had donned the suit and charged his phone, and finally, here he was. Emerald eyes scanning the crowd through a shock of white-blond hair, he made a mental note of the attendees and finally found who he was looking for… whom, at the current moment, stood less than two feet away from JJ, holding his glass of water in both hands, shoulders slightly up in a way that broadcasted a distinct displeasure at the conversation.

Otabek did _not_ look comfortable.

Yuri rolled his eyes and strode through several tables where people clustered around drinks or ate hors d'ouevres, the sound of JJ’s voice becoming more and more annoying until he reached the pair and could finally make out words.

“...Besides, it must be dull not to train with any rink mates, don’t you think? And.. ah, there’s the gold medal winner! Better late than never.” JJ smiled in a self-reassured way that instantly made Yuri want to punch him in the face. Since literally the first time the two had met, Yuri had despised the Canadian and his suffocating narcissism. Sure, being a little narcissistic was part of the game they all played as public figures, but JJ’s pursuit of notoriety made him an outlier even among the more… public figures, like Chris or Georgi.

At least Georgi didn’t have a band. The thought made Yuri snort, which earned an eyebrow raise and accompanying smartass grin from JJ.

“What’s the matter, Yuri-o?” He sneered, drawing out the “o” in a way that made Yuri’s eyes nearly bulge out of his head. “I was just having a little chat with our little Kazakh over here. Right?” Otabek’s expression somehow became even more acutely uncomfortable.

As if to drive the point home, JJ suddenly grabbed Otabek’s shoulder, pulling him close with one arm as the other raised his phone for a selfie. “Smile, I’ll put th-“

Before JJ could finish, Yuri reached out and slapped the expensive looking phone clean out of his hand, sending it bouncing off the ballroom carpet. Yuri was good at destroying phones, or at least, attempting to; the fact that it was in a case was likely the only reason that the screen didn’t explode upon impact. JJ let go of Otabek like he’d been bitten, swooping down to grab up the phone and frantically inspecting it before glowering at Yuri.

“What the hell?!” He snarled.

Yuri smiled nastily, taking a step closer to JJ. “You’re probably hard of hearing, judging by the way that you ‘sing’,” he said, emphasizing the last word with air quotes, “but _I’m_ the one who won gold. So how about you fuck off and go sit with your… oh, right. Still your fiancé, right, asshole? Sorry about the wedding.” He grinned viciously and crossed one arm over the other at his chest, both hands flashing pale middle fingers, one leg kicked out to the side.

“Iiiit’s bachelor style!” Yuri winked, savoring the furious expression of JJ’s face. “Right, JJ-chan?”

JJ murmured something insulting under his breath and turned on one heel, stalking back in the direction of his fiancé, who looked concerned but knew better than to ask. Yuri watched him go, doing his absolute best to burn holes in the back of JJ’s blazer with his eyes. He replayed the encounter along with a  variety of nasty turnphrases, which he filed away for their next meeting with an almost violent glee.

A small cough pulled Yuri’s attention from JJ and back to Otabek, who stood with his usual expression-of-no-expression, watching Yuri passively with both hands still around his water. “What?” Yuri snapped, although he was glad to see Otabek. The Kazakh turned his head and frowned slightly, and Yuri subconsciously took the opportunity to take him in. The dark, crisply tailored suit that Otabek wore was offset only by the deep emerald green of the suit jacket over black and gray undertones. The angles of the fabric were clean-cut and sharp, and made the outfit altogether look utilitarian in a way that would have been vaguely militaristic if not for the bowtie he wore. Otabek’s hair was swept back in its usual way, and his eyes stood out against the dark fabric—

“I don’t like him.” Otabek said bluntly, startling Yuri out of his observations.

Then, a second later, “..thank you. I was wondering if you were still coming.” He turned back to look at Yuri, who felt a grin claiming the corners of his mouth. “Thought I’d skipped the agreement we both made to be here?”

Otabek shrugged. “Your coach likely would have made you come anyway, as a medal winner.” He pointed out. Yuri rolled his eyes but couldn’t keep himself from appreciating Otabek’s persistent realism, especially when the rest of his rinkmates were so… _extra_.

“You’re not wrong. But here I am, and here you are, and we’re stuck here in the same room as JJ and Victor and Katsudon… so you could thank me for saving you by grabbing us a couple of drinks.”

Ota stiffened. “The legal drinking age for Kazahkstan is 21. I can’t drink,” he raised an eyebrow at Yuri, “and neither can you.”

Yuri responded by grinning wickedly, pleased to see Otabek almost reverting to his previous level of discomfort at the sight of his plotting.

“Yeah, but are we in Kazahkstan?”

Ota shook his head.

“Do you know where we are?”

The other man frowned. “I refuse to dignify that with an answer.”

“And what’s the legal drinking age in Spain?” Yuri persisted, sliding closer. Otabek looked at Yuri and tilted his head slightly to the side, frown deepening in a displeased way that somehow made Yuri a little giddy.

“It’s 18, Otabek.” He grinned cockily. “Just like Russia.”

Otabek seemed to mull this over for a minute, visibly formulating his counterargument. A rare smirk intruded upon the hard line of his mouth.

“Problem is, you’re still not 18.” He held up a hand at approximately Yuri’s height to further illustrate his point, which Yuri smacked away furiously.

“Yes, but you fucking are. Go get us some champagne.” He commanded petulantly, trying to give the Kazakh man a down-the-bridge-of-his-nose look, which, being that Otabek was taller, ended up finally cracking a smile from his stone-faced features.

The look gave Yuri a prickling sensation in the back of his mind, though he shoved it away dismissively as excitement at doing something that surely would give Yakov an aneurysm if he knew. Otabek looked around, purposely avoiding Yuri’s stare—difficult to do, as he was in between Yuri and the wall with a scarcely an arm’s length on either side.

“We’ll get caught. It could negatively affect next season.” Ota protested weakly, trying- and failing- to smother the grin still pulling up the corners of his mouth, as if the expression were one that he was not familiar with enough to control. But a bit more coaxing, and he returned with two _full_ flutes of champagne, which, by the way, tasted delicious.

Yuri noted quietly to himself that as he grew older he’d culture more manly drinking habits; Sake or Vodka, perhaps. Sans chaser, of course, like Victor did… but even Victor drank the champagne at the banquets. Everyone did.  The first flute went down fairly easily. Yuri was tapping his foot by the end of it, leaned up against the wall. Otabek had drifted off to make what Yuri guessed to be a half-hearted attempt at socializing for at least ten minutes.

Or perhaps to keep him from appearing glued to Yuri’s side, or Yuri to his. They’d been spending a lot of time together since the day that Otabek had rescued him from the hoard of screaming girls, and when Chris slyly mentioned it during his congratulatory handshake, Yuri went red in the face and actually _hissed_ at him.

The rest of the diplomatic handshaking and small talk left the Russian skater in a particularly foul mood; he had never been one much for niceties, nor did he like them. Yuri was a skater, an athlete, not some poster-child or press-pleaser.

 _In fact,_ he fought himself thinking after the fourteenth handshake and lukewarm congratulations on his gold medal/senior debut, _this entire event is bullshit. That’s why everyone drinks so much. The champagne is a bullshit shield._

Several eyes had made contact with the flute during his intermittent bits of conversation, but no one as of yet had challenged him on it. Better yet, both Victor and Katsudon seemed so preoccupied with something when he talked to each of them individually that he was emboldened enough to walk up to the banquet table and snatch a second glass himself, not bothering to look back at the server’s surprised reaction.

They likely knew that Yuri wasn’t yet 16, but he was riding on petulant anger and a temporary feeling of localized immunity, and it gave him enough of an air of confidence to walk away unchallenged again.

Yuri’s eyes flicked over to Victor and Yuuri, watching the two interact with the usual accompanying disdain that he held for them and their love-sick antics. Victor had Katsudon by the lapel and was pulling him close, whispering something into his ear that made the dark-haired man blush, knuckles whitening suddenly around the similar flute of champagne that he was holding. It was a wonder he wasn’t breaking it, Yuri thought, and silently thanked the powers that be that he wasn’t embarrassingly emotional like that with anyone.

Still, watching them made Yuri angry in a way that sometimes even he didn’t understand and _that_ was… curious. He continued to observe as Chris and a man whose arm he held onto called Victor over for a flamboyant round of introductions, and Pichit closed in on Yuuri out of nowhere, phone already mounted on the end of that goddamn stick he always carried.

Yuri had never been particularly fond of the Thai skater; he was overwhelmingly positive in a way that Yuri didn’t understand, but even so, he had to grudgingly admit that he was damn good with camera angles. He turned from his observations, kicking the carpet restlessly.

When would the actual _fun_ begin? By this time last year, Katsudon had already taken almost a full bottle of champagne to the face-

– _and he was wearing his necktie like a goddamn ninja._

Yuri shook his head, almost smiling despite himself. Admittedly, secretly, he had loved the chance to dance last year. Even though the idea had been one that he never would have come up with, the bizarre setting had allowed him, a junior division skater, to mingle with the ‘older’ crowd. He’d even been treated like an equal, which despite his outward derision of his surroundings, had felt _good_.

When he looked back up, however, Victor was striding across the floor, practically dragging Yuuri away behind him. Yuri’s eyes widened and he swore under his breath. They were leaving! Here he’d stood for the last twenty minutes, waiting for things to become interesting, and the two main perpetrators of last year’s fun were ducking out on them without so much as a jacket removed. Yuri yelled after them, but neither seemed to hear, continuing their obviously hurried pace until they rounded a corner and disappeared from sight.

Yuri spun around, fuming, and nearly collided with Otabek, who unbeknownst to him had been standing behind him for the last five minutes. Yuri doubled back with another swear, spilling a little champagne over the edge of his flute with the motion. Otabek raised an eyebrow, voice slightly alarmed.

“Is that a second drink?”

Yuri narrowed his eyes, jabbing an accusing finger in the Kazakh’s direction.

“I could say the same for you.” True to Yuri’s words, Otabek stood with a half-consumed drink in one hand. His stance, however, seemed a little more relaxed at last. The alcohol was bringing a hint of color to Ota’s cheeks and Yuri offhandedly noticed that the top button of his dress shirt was undone, bowtie loosened ever-so-slightly.

It was distracting.

Otabek shrugged. “It’s nasty anyway,” he sighed, looking down at the drink unenthusiastically.  “Why are you mad?”

Otabek was probably the only person that actually ever asked that. Yuri speculated that everyone else simply perceived him as being in a state of constant anger, which wasn’t _entirely_ off.

Yuri took another swig of his champagne, feeling a rush of heat beneath his skin. “Victor and Katsudon just ditched everyone to go do God-knows-what.” He stuck his tongue out with mock-nausea. “And with those loose cannons gone, there’s nothing to fucking do.” Otabek tilted his head to this side, watching Yuri, who shrugged. “And we’re all leaving tomorrow. This sucks.”

Yuri looked up, the two skaters meeting and holding each other’s gaze for a long, uninterrupted moment. Yuri’s eyes widened and he blinked, only after which Ota blinked and looked away, smiling. Yuri’s cheeks burned. Had he been imagining it, or had Otabek been playing a staring game with him just now? The man was so full of nuances that he was damnably hard to read, but Yuri felt like something had just happened and he was aggravated that his heart was suddenly beating harder than normal.

The night was beginning to draw to an end. Chris had disappeared as well, and without their energy, the event suddenly seemed lackluster. Yuri was dissatisfied and he knew it. Surely there was something else that they could do…

a sudden idea struck him.

“Yeah, that’s it.” Otabek looked at Yuri and tilted his head to the side, which was Ota-speak for _what’s it?_ Yuri turned around, smiling widely. “Let’s go for a walk.” The Kazakh skater’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion, which only made Yuri smile more.

 “Right now? And leave the party?”

Yuri looked around a little more dramatically than necessary, then downed the remainder of his champagne with a wince. “Are you complaining?”

The sudden rush of alcohol hit him with another wave of giddiness and he shuddered, causing his hair to fall across one eye as he stared through it at Otabek. Something flashed across Ota’s features, but the expression was too quick to catch.

Yuri looked up at the ceiling in thought. “Even better. Go get your skates. I’ll meet you at the rink in ten minutes, okay?” Otabek looked thoroughly confused at this point, but nodded stoically and threw his drink, glass and all, into the trash, turning and walking towards his room without further comment.

Yuri took the stairs three at a time.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter time, woot! As promised. How were your weekends? Might have done a season re-watch myself... Also, if you haven't seen Johnny Weir skating to Yurio's 'Agape' yet, WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? Go watch it! Then, uh.. promise you'll come back to read?
> 
> You're beautiful. All of you. And Johnny Weir. Cheers!

Not bothering to change clothes, Yuri found himself standing in front of the full-length mirror in his room no more than three minutes later, checking the angles of his reflection with a satisfaction that was smug in its self-confidence. The rigors of last season had toned him; there was little else to his frame but elegant lines and lithe muscle. Although he knew that he was alone, Yuri shot a quick look left and right, then leaned closer to the mirror, wiggling his eyebrows.

He growled at his reflection, winking and blowing his bangs away from his eyes. _The Ice Tiger of Russia. Goddamn right._

He tugged at his lapels and worked a scowl back over his features immediately, as if someone were watching from the 12th floor window in at him. Turning off all the lights save one and grabbing his skates, Yuri was halfway to the door when a gold glint from the bed stopped him. In the half-light of the room, Yuri looked at the gold medal that just earlier that day had hung around his neck, heavy in its significance.

His ticket to fame… no, the _seal_ on his fame.

Yuri dropped his skates on the floor and walked over to the medal, slipping off a glove to take it in his bare hand. It was solid, glinting fitfully as he turned it from side to side. Striding back to the mirror, Yuri breathed out slowly and smoothly lifted the ribbon around his neck, staring at the reflection in the mirror for a long, silent moment.

He frowned.

Why didn’t it feel… better? Sure, the surge of power when he’d been bestowed the honor of it on the pedestal had been the biggest rush of his life. It was unlike anything Yuri had ever experienced, and he’d been more full of verve than ever before.

What’s more, with the money he’d won from first place, he could pay his _dedushka_ ’s bills for the next few months, maybe even more. The thought of that, at least, seemed to comfort him. Taking care of the old man was important to Yuri. His grandfather alone had always been there, always supported him no matter what. It seemed only fitting that now, with some money, power, and recently, prestige, that he was able to do the same.

But that still wasn’t it.

Now that the crowds had gone, and the champagne sat thick in his veins, in the half-light of an empty hotel room, Yuri looked at his reflection and felt… dissatisfied. Like something was missing. He took a long breath, letting it out in little puffs. His chest felt tight, and he didn’t know why.

Self-consciously, Yuri touched the gold around his neck again. It didn’t feel quite the same. Why? There were no higher achievements. Nothing greater than this to gain, except perhaps more of the same.

But he couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow, he’d been cheated. The sound of Victor and Katsudon’s dual laughter floated quietly through the back of his mind and Yuri scowled darkly, taking off the medal and hucking it into the pillows.

He left his room, slamming the door behind him. Stomping up to the elevator, Yuri paused, then turned to once again take the service stairs down, his skates hanging around his neck. The party was still droning on when he made it to the bottom floor, but the Russian skater slipped quietly through a side door and into the night air.

In was quiet and cold outside; a welcome change to the almost stuffy warmth within. Yuri let out a breath he hadn’t realized that he’d been holding in, pulling the collar of his shirt up around his neck and walking briskly towards the rink, which was only about a hundred meters away.

Yuri had always liked the cold; it did him good, cleared his head. By the time he pushed his way through the revolving door and into the rink, the troubling feeling from his room was only a dull ache in the back of his mind.

Yuri slipped around the guards and followed a mostly-dark hallway towards the ice. Most rinks were built with a fairly common floorplan, and by the time they hit senior division, any skater worth their salt could practically navigate a rink blind. And Yuri, a master of navigation, only turned down the wrong hallway _twice_ before finally getting to the rinkside benches.

Otabek was already there, and Yuri guessed with a wince that he’d long beat his Russian compatriot to the spot he was sitting now. Having the advantage of concealment behind a row of folded-up podiums, Yuri adjusted the skates hanging around his neck and watched his friend. Otabek sat, leaning slightly forward on the bench in a way that made his suit jacket tight across his shoulder blades.

As Yuri’d suspected, he hadn’t changed, save for the fingerless gloves and motorcycle scarf that he seemed to be far more comfortable wearing. His skates lay on the ground at his feet. Finally, Yuri stopped looking _at_ Otabek and started watching _what_ he was doing.

Periodically in and out of his hand was a cork-shaped object that seemed to be made from a gray rubber-like material. The Kazakh threw it with almost alarming speed and accuracy at a fleck of paint on the wall, bouncing it back to his hands with each throw in a rhythmic pattern. Although the spot was no bigger than a ping-pong ball and at least ten feet away, Otabek hit it dead-on nearly every time.

_-Pit, pit, pit.-_

His brows were furrowed in either concentration or frustration, Yuri couldn’t tell. But the expression made his eyes glimmer in the rink-light and Yuri felt a heat in his cheeks that may or may not have been the champagne.

A piece of hair worked itself loose from the rest, falling across Ota’s forehead in an annoyingly attractive way.

_-Pit, pit, pit.-_

Yuri stepped out from behind the podiums as if he’d just arrived, grinning with a nonchalance that he didn’t entirely feel.

“Oh, Yuri.” _-Pit, pit.-_

Otabek stopped, clasping the cork in both hands, turning his upper body sideways. His cheeks were slightly flushed, or maybe they’d already been colored from the cold.

Yuri slung the skates off his neck, dropping them carefully to the ground so as not to scuff them. His skates were perhaps the only thing other than his cat and his grandfather that he was gentle with.

Jerking his chin up in a confident nod, Yuri grinned wider. He took a shoulder-width stance, spreading his arms out, open palmed, to either side.

“Throw it at me.”

Otabek frowned, canting his head to the side. “To you?” He queried.

Yuri shook his head. “No, at me.” Otabek blinked, and Yuri frowned with impatience. “I said fucking throw it at me,” he snapped, adding more gently to soften the statement, “it’s okay.” Sparing no further comment, Otabek wound back and gave a light- though accurate- throw, strong shoulder sending the cork towards the Russian skater.

_-Pit!-_

The cork struck concrete behind Yuri, who had nimbly skipped out of its path as if Ota had thrown it underhand. Turning to retrieve it, Yuri whiffed it towards Otabek, who caught it solidly in one hand. Yuri assumed the same posture, legs crossed one in front of the other this time, arms outstretched in the position of his finishing pose from the competition’s free skate.

Otabek’s eyes glinted in dark curiosity and the corner of his mouth twitched. Without warning, he threw harder, aiming for the center of Yuri’s chest, cork whistling through the cold air.

Yuri was off his feet in an instant, spinning around in a display of ridiculous athleticism, especially considering that he was still in his suit. Landing from a double rotation, he opened his palm to display the cork, not trying to conceal a cocky grin. Otabek gave a stoic round of applause, though he was plainly impressed and made no move to hide it, which only furthered Yuri’s grin.

Yuri rolled the cork around in his hand. “What is this?”

Otabek looked at Yuri a little longer than necessary, then shifted his focus to the cork. “It’s called _Asyk_. That-,“ he pointed to the object in Yuri’s hand, “is a _Saka_. You compete against others to see who can hit a target with the _Saka_ best. The more you hit the target, the more of the opponent’s _Asyks_ you get.”

Yuri rolled the cork around again, narrowing his eyes in moderate understanding.

“Huh.” He said prolifically.

Otabek held up his hand, and Yuri tossed the cork-Saka back to him. Otabek raised an eyebrow. “And you? Do you dodge things for fun in Russia?” The tone in his voice suggested teasing, but the humor was in a context that Yuri didn’t comprehend. He sat on the bench instead, lacing his fingers together behind his head and stretching out luxuriously in a half moon that arced his torso backwards towards the ground.

“No. Well, actually yes.“ He frowned in thought. “It’s a older game from the CCCP era. The kids in my neighborhood played it… though I didn’t have much time for that.” He finished quickly, diverting his gaze to the overhead lights.

“The _Vishibali_ \- bouncers- stand on either end and throw a ball at the players lined up in the middle. The whole point is to _not_ be stupid and get hit.”

Otabek looked down at the cork curiously. “ _Vishibali_.” His voice, deep and smooth, worked its way around the Russian with an accent that Yuri instantly liked, and for a few seconds he considered telling Otabek that he’d said the word wrong just to hear him say it again.

“I was small, but fast, so I got pretty damn good. Dumb game, really.” He grinned, flipping his hair back and leaning backwards to stretch until his hands touched the floor. The inverted position hid Yuri’s face temporarily, giving him time to recompose his features.

In truth, he’d _hated_ Vishibali. In further truth, they’d played the game in their neighborhood because there was little money to be spent on toys or trips growing up. Even worse, because of Yuri’s waifish size, he was _always_ in the middle.

In other words, always the first to be hit.

But the game centered not only on skill, but developing a tolerance for pain. To be tough, or at least appear tough. So Yuri appeared tough until he was fast enough to dodge, and dodged until he was fast enough to catch and return the ball, a snarl betraying the anger at the way he was treated. But he wouldn’t cry, and he wouldn’t run home to tell.

Eventually, he stopped showing up to play.

Yuri leaned back up, the blood that had rushed to his head giving his face a slight redness and a secondary lightheadedness from the champagne moving around inside him.  He looked up at Otabek, blinking casually.

And just like that, stubborn, petulant Yuri Plisetsky had returned. “What are you looking at?” he snapped, and Otabek shook his head.

“Sometimes, I don’t get you.” He confessed. His tone was even but his eyes were somehow… softer.

Yuri found himself speaking before he even gave thought to the words. “Sometimes, I don’t, either.”

He blinked, cheeks burning. _What in the hell?!_

Looking down, he cursed, starting to remove his shoes. They sat in silence, Yuri mentally berating himself for the way the statement must have sounded. But when he looked up again, laces half-undone, Otabek was still standing, watching him with the same expression.

 Yuri glared at him, opening and closing his mouth several times before deciding on a defensive silence. Ota blinked slowly.

“I like that about you, though,” he said simply, sitting down and starting to untie his own shoes as if the statement was nothing significant.

Yuri’s mouth hung open, speechless. For the millionth time that day, his cheeks colored, and he let his chin sink into his shirtfront, hair obscuring that smile that overtook his face as he finished unlacing his shoes.

_Thank you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact of the chapter: Asyk and Vishibali, from the little research that I did, are real games played in Kazakhstan and Russia! Who knows, it's possible that Ota and Yuri played something along these lines. And thanks for the support I've gotten already just from my first chapter! I was so nervous starting to write again, but you guys have been great.
> 
> Also, I promise to give you more of Otabek trying his hand at Russian eventually. You just have to ~imagine~ the way he says it. 
> 
> Until next time!
> 
> Love, Sofiya


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thought for the week; "Yuri on Galaxy" might just be my aesthetic. Bless him and his little extra heart to heaven.  
> (And supposedly, Ota helped him come up with this. Excuse me while I scream forever.)
> 
> A little angst here! But longer. Buckle up! Cheers!

The pair removed their shoes in a comfortable silence, lacing up skates as their breath floated towards the rafters in misty, swirling little clouds. Yuri double-knotted the laces at the top, then fastidiously tucked the loose ends down into the sides of his skates. Taking off the guard, Yuri dropped it to the concrete, raking pale fingers back through his hair. He sighed, moving in fluid motions from the bench towards the ice.

Otabek, still tying on the second skate, looked up and raised an eyebrow as if to question, _what did you have in mind?_

Yuri shrugged off his jacket, throwing the striped fabric towards the bench, and began unbuttoning his vest without a second thought. A careful observation through the veil of his hair told Yuri that the other skater was suddenly deeply preoccupied in removing the guards from his skates. Free of the second layer of fabric, Yuri tossed the vest over by the jacket and stretched his arms across his chest, tightening the black suspenders that had been hidden underneath all evening.

The sound of a small inhale of breath stole Yuri’s attention and he looked up at Otabek again. The other man’s eyes drank in his image, shoes to shoulders, fingers frozen in undoing his bowtie. Yuri froze in return, wondering if he’d spilled something on his shirt. His eyes narrowed instantly. “What?” He asked, voice thick with suspicion. Ota blinked several times, gaze moving slowly up Yuri’s face.

“You look.” He swallowed hard, shaking his head as if to dispel some thought. “Wow.” He finished simply.

The comment could have been interpreted either way, but the slight thickness to Otabek’s voice when he said gave Yuri a sudden rush of emotion. He smiled, winking as he unclipped his own bowtie, throwing it atop the pile without the least bit of shame.

“Don’t be too slow, now,” and turned, making maximum use of his willpower not to run, and glided onto the plane of white in one smooth motion. Unnecessarily, Yuri balanced one leg out behind him, lifting his head and arms up in a graceful pose to glide towards the ice.

He could feel Ota’s stare the entire time. It made him feel powerful, impressive, even though they were the only two in the vastness of the stadium.

It was strange, Yuri remarked, to actually be skating with someone not in a training environment. He pumped his legs and skimmed the surface of the rink, bending down to swing around an imaginary surface, fingertips trailing across the sheet of cold glass as he did so. Being out on the ice again gave him a certain type of peace, and without Yakov’s grating voice or the thrum of a crowd it was… blissfully quiet. Low pressure, low intensity.

And surprisingly, he didn’t mind. Yuri realized slowly that he hadn’t skated for pleasure in nearly a year, especially so since Victor had up and left the team for Russia. Skating had always been an enormous facet of his life, but the pressure of a senior debut (and the rage at losing Victor to a then-hopeless cause) had consumed him, until passion and persistence had blended and the sport was the only thing that _was_ left.

In fact, Yuri, a social media star by nature, had actually found himself at points having to consciously go out and do things for his feed, after which he stopped only to nurse new bruises and swollen feet before retaking the ice. It had been the second hardest thing he’d ever done, and the full realization hadn’t hit him until just now. Yuri closed his eyes and swung around in a spread eagle, noting with new annoyance at the restriction of his dress pants.

A slide of metal on ice announced Otabek’s entrance to the rink, and Yuri eyed the Kazakh as he skated onto the ice. The removal of his jacket, vest, and bowtie punched some of the breath from Yuri’s lungs.

He looked _incredible_.

With the outer layers gone, Yuri could clearly see the way that Otabek’s dress shirt clung close to his muscular frame, each angle strong and permeated with masculinity. The top two buttons were undone, revealing just enough of his chest to display skin, and nothing else, between. The soft white illuminated the strong, swan-like curve of Ota’s throat and complimented his skin, making the near-black depths of his eyes shine in the overhead lights.

It was more than distracting this time. It was beautiful. While Otabek lacked some of the subtle grace that Yuri found so easily with his lithe form, he made up for it with sheer power. The way he moved so quickly across the ice with such apparent ease spoke volumes of his physical stamina, and something about _that_ thought sent a shiver up Yuri’s spine. He stood still, watching the other man as if captive.

Circling the outer edges of the rink in motions that were more function than flourish, Otabek sunk low and then sprang upwards. He turned twice, almost three times in a toe loop, landed on one foot, gliding backwards, arm out for stability… and threw.

The extra motion cost him his balance due to the restriction of his clothes and caused Ota to fall forward, rolling across the ice, just as the cork pegged Yuri squarely in the forehead.

- _Pit!_ -

It wasn’t hard, but it shocked the shit out of Yuri.

Laying on his stomach, Ota’s perfectly deadpan features never stood a chance. One look at Yuri’s  expression, and he grinned hugely. A deep, bubbling sound forced its way past his lips, spilling into the air between them.

Otabek was actually _laughing_.

Yuri snapped back into reality with a thunderclap of swearing, turning deftly on his skates to snatch the cork off the ice and take off full speed towards him, pointing viciously with empty threats of violence. Otabek, still laughing, scrambled to his feet in mock panic and took off with one push, setting their game of chase into motion, arms protectively caged over his head. “Көмектесіңіз! (Kömektesiñiz!)I’m being attacked!”

After semi-successfully pegging Ota in the back several times with the cork, the two settled once again into a comfortable silence, skating until they were sweating, shirts coming partially unbuttoned, cufflinks vanishing, damp hair going up in hairties.

At one point Otabek rolled his sleeves up with some effort over muscular forearms, causing Yuri to almost glide gracefully into the nearest wall. He saved himself at the last second, but a sudden round of coughing behind him sounded suspiciously like someone trying to cover up laughter.

It was the most fun Yuri could remember have in a –long- time, and he was disappointed when time finally started to creep up on them. He was giddy and a little dizzy and hadn’t tried too many jumps with the limitations of his suit, but the Russian skater didn’t mind. Surprisingly, he still felt a little buzzed, and wondered passively if he’d feel it in the morning, or if he’d sweated most of the alcohol out by now.

As they were removing their skates, Yuri bent over and, in doing so, accidentally kicked one of his guards across the floor. “Shit.”

Otabek shook his head good-naturedly, picking up the guard and handing it to Yuri. When their hands touched, it sent a sudden flush of warmth through Yuri’s arm, straight to his chest. Yuri started at the feeling of Otabek’s skin, freezing. Ota gave him a puzzled look.

“Yuri?”

“—Can I call you Beka?”

Otabek blinked, his pupils dilating in surprise. Yuri felt a heat creep over his face and cursed down into the collar of his shirt. It sounded stupid now that he’d said it; he felt stupid, too. Something had just… compelled him to ask. Like it should have already been established, and was simply overdue.

 “It’s just fucking easier, not my fault you have such a long-ass name, and—“

“I’d like that. A lot.”

The deep timbre of his voice startled Yuri, and he glanced back up through his hair. Otabek’s cheeks were undeniably red, but this time, he didn’t look away. Time was caught swinging like in a pendant light in the wind, the distance between them all at once too far away and too close.

Otabek continued to bore into Yuri with his eyes, a darker and more vivid shade of brown than Yuri could remember anyone ever having. Otabek took his time with the next words, and when he spoke, they came slowly, like he was tasting the feeling invested in each syllable.

“So then, that means, I—“

“Can call me Yura.” Yuri said, releasing a breath that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Yura… Is fine.”

Otabek swallow and nodded, still taking in Yuri with a gaze that made the hairs on the back of his arms stand on end. Nicknames. They had nicknames for each other, now. _Plenty of people do that with friends, right?_

Aggravatingly, Yuri was at a loss as to what making friends was normally like. He suspected however, and gained a little comfort in feeling, that Otabek was similarly at a loss of what to do.  The Kazakh nodded, and another expression that Yuri had never seen crept into the top half of his face. His eyes retained their level, soft look, and his eyebrows arched in a way that was actually _inviting_.

“Yura.” He breathed, and it gave Yuri a feeling a giddiness and a heat in his chest. The emotion was so powerful that Yuri looked away, though he found himself grinning at the wall of the rink.

“Let’s go back, Yura.” The prickling sensation from the party that had been at the back of Yuri’s mind was back, and he didn’t try to stop it.

Jackets over their shoulders, skates tied over their necks, Yuri moved closer to Otabek- _Beka_ \- as they walked. His presence was suddenly like an invisible fire… closer he got, the more the warmth in his chest bloomed. Slow realization was creeping at the edges of his consciousness, but he couldn’t quite grasp it.

What about Otabek made him so disarming? Why was he able to get away with things that Yuri would have otherwise flayed people alive for? He was so… at ease around the other man. Like it was natural.

He stumbled as they rounded a corner, and was dimly aware of the fact that he was still a little tipsy. Otabek’s arm steadied his back instantly, and the sensation of his touch through the thin fabric of Yuri’s shirt was like an arc of electricity. He intook breath and Otabek stopped, turning to face him.

“Yura,” that name again- “Is everything alri—“

Yuri turned to face Otabek so that they mirrored one another, and took the other man’s bicep in a  firm grasp, pulling him close. Otabek froze. They were near enough that Yuri could smell the cologne that he was wearing, see his pupils dilate at the touch. His skin was as soft as it had been the first time.

Yuri’s mind buzzed. The warmth in his chest exploded into a powerful emotion that he’d never known. And.. a sort of need. His lips parted.

Otabek jerked back like he’d been bitten, and either the sudden motion or the emotional overturn threw Yuri for a loop hard enough that his head spun. The feeling of loss and a deeply familiar sense of dread loomed out of the shadows, wrapping around Yuri with crushing power.

Rejection. It engulfed the warmth from before, leaving icy spears in Yuri’s chest, making his stomach drop. This feeling he knew painfully, intimately well, though never in this sort of way. Yuri took an involuntary step back, red-hot anger rising to the forefront. His shield, his self-protection.

_Like a champagne bullshit shield for emotions._

Otabek looked like wrestling with something painful, his own features contorted. Yuri stared without being able to stop. Otabeks’ expressions, his laughter, the skating, the games… it all seemed like fantasy now, crashing down on their heads under the merciless hand of reality. Yuri wanted to run. He wanted to cuss out Otabek for getting close and turn and run, and never look back.

And might have, if Otabek hadn’t followed the step he took back, preserving the small distance between them.

“Don’t go,” Otabek gulped. “please.” There was something vulnerable in his voice that Yuri had never imagined existing.

It was like a knife of clarity through the darkness. Yuri could see out from in between his personal terror. Yuri blinked, eyes falling to his shoes. The hand holding his skates white-knuckled the laces.

“The fuck was that?” He asked, both to himself and Ota.

“I’m sorry,” came the deep-voiced whisper.

Yuri blinked at his shoes stupidly. Had the words been in English? He didn’t understand.

Otabek said it a second time, quieter. Yuri realized that Otabek must have thought that Yuri was angry at him for stepping away. As if he’d been a coward. Somehow, the thought of it was painful. Yuri shook his head violently.

“No, no, it wasn’t that..” He swallowed a lump in his throat. “I just… ah. I wanted to be near you.”

Something fundamental was happening and Yuri had no idea what it was, but it made him feel powerful. Not powerful like he did when he was skating, but… powerful. The way he’d always imagined that gripping a gold medal after the Grand Prix Final would have felt.

His wit was gone. Sarcasm, too. Free of his inhibitions by the sheer amount of emotion flowing through him, heart pounding, Yuri stepped closer and reached out to touch Otabek’s chest. It was warm beneath the fabric of his shirt. The warmth in his own chest had returned and it was as addictively pleasurable as it was incredibly terrifying.

Otabek intook air, gasping a little, eyes widening again. He reached up and closed his hand around Yuri’s. “Yuri… Yura, this can’t happen,” He said, and Yuri realized with a start that his hand was shaking over Yuri’s own. They locked eyes, and Otabek’s gaze imperceptibly conflicted, almost tortured.

Yuri didn’t move his hand, but drank in Otabek’s sudden closeness, the look of his face…; “If we were normal people, with normal lives, who followed normal rules… our friendship.. he faltered, “or… whatever… wouldn’t work. Maybe. But this…” Yuri gestured around, a little more aggressively than he might have without the adrenaline-fueled resolve.

“This! The hotels, the travel, the practice, the parties, the skating….” The Russian let his arms fall to his sides helplessly, for once nearly looking his age, and stared into Otabek’s eyes unwaveringly.

“Everything we do. We can’t mix well with “normal” people anymore, can we? We’re our own little culture, blessed and cursed with exclusivity that puts us in the world’s view and then closes the door between us and a fucking private life.” Yuri took a deep breath, leveling his voice from the near-fervor it had risen to, trying to regain any of the nonchalance he’d abandoned as soon as the two of them were alone.

“So tell me, Beka, living our lives the way that we do, being so stupidly free of what normal is… how is ‘this’ wrong?”

Otabek’s eyes widened until they were nearly all black and he made what almost sounded like a started cough in the back of his throat. A deep scarlet raced down Yuri’s entire face and neck when he snapped back to his senses and realized with sudden terrible clarity that he was there, with the hero of Kazahkstan, buzzed and blabbering and… trying to justify feelings he’d only subconsciously had until now. Feelings, that is, for the man he’d been touching for the last minute solid.

Reality hit with an almost physically nauseating wave of vulnerability, and Yuri covered face with both hands, utterly overwhelmed, feeling like he might pass out. As he did, however, two arms encircled Yuri, pulling him close against a plane of muscle.

Yuri’s eyes widened in surprise and he found himself buried in Otabek’s shirtfront, somehow clinging with both hands to the one who embraced him. The expenditure of emotion and raw honesty momentarily consumed him and he pressed his face into Ota’s chest, breathing shakily.

And then, slowly, gently, he felt something brush the top of his head. It took him a moment to realize the single soft click above was the sound of Otabek kissing his hair. The Kazahk man let his nose and mouth settle into the golden silk, breathing in deeply before speaking. As always, it was slower, measured, in that slightly off-kilter meter that Yuri had come to expect;

“It _isn’t_ wrong. What you _feel_ isn’t wrong. We just…” A pause.

“It isn’t time. Yet.” Another pause, longer, and then, as Otabek began to release Yuri, so softly that he almost didn’t hear it;

 

 “I’ll wait for you. Just wait for me, okay?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: Despite using a cyrillic alphabet like Russian, Kazakh is actually more of a Turkic language. So when Ota speaks, even if you read it and think "huh, looks similiar", Yuri would be clueless!  
> (Unless he's been using Duolingo, of course.)
> 
> Angst! Like I warned. But fear not, faithful few. Our kotik (kitten) doesn't give up so easily... does he? Be on the lookout for next week's post!
> 
> XOXO,  
> Sofiya


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So….. I’m really, really sorry about taking so long on this chapter. Work/emotions/general feeling blah have been really sidelining me lately and it’s been hard to do normal things (sleep, clean house, etc. ), much less write. But after the drop last night of THAT BEAUTIFUL-GLOVE-BITING-OH-MY-GOD-MAGIC, I’m back! And we should have some good flow here again. Thanks for your patience.
> 
> <3

________________________

Sunlight was an unwelcome guest in his room.

Yuri rolled over in the too-large hotel bed, shoving his head under a pillow. The slight headache barely reached him around the emotion that wrapped him tightly, making breathing mildly difficult.

_Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck._

Last night’s events played over and over in his head, an endless loop of bad decisions and vulnerability. He felt so stupid. Yuri rolled over, placing a hand on his forehead and counting the dimples in the ceiling above him.

_What must I have looked like to him? A child? Desperate? Lonely?_

Worse yet, Yuri wasn’t even sure how _he_ felt. The loss of control was sickening, and when Victor came by to invite him for breakfast, Yuri couldn’t even bring himself to insult him at the door, although Victor sounded strangely morose himself.

Though he was sure they knew nothing of the previous night’s events, the thought of sharing the flight home with his rink-mates settled a stone of cold dread in Yuri’s stomach. He stayed in bed for most of the morning, replaying everything that had happened in vivid detail. By the time he’d forced himself into the shower, shedding clothes on the way, he was convinced that he’d made an absolute ass of himself. Turning the dial all the way over- Yuri was particularly fond of hot showers- the Russian skater settled his chin on his chest, letting water pour over his head, turning the sounds of the outside world into a calm, insulated blur.

Was it a deep friendship with Otabek that he’d desired? Was it really something more? Did the other man feel the same way about him?

…Was he even attractive to Otabek? A myriad of dark thoughts started at the corners of his mind and he violently pushed them away, wrapping his arms around his pale chest  with a shudder. It was exhausting to feel this way. To care about someone, and worry if they cared back. Eventually, Yuri thought himself into numbness, standing mutely under the rush of the water. He stood there until it started to get cold, letting the water beat over his back and head.

Otabek's voice swirled around in his mind, his heat, the firm feel of his chest beneath Yuri's hand.... Yuri felt a strange mix of emotions in the bottom of his gut again, spreading lower... and panicked, turning the knob entirely to cold until he was shivering.

Breathing heavily from the ice-cold spray, Yuri climbed out and toweled off, sprawling out on his stomach across the bed. Out of habit, he reached for his phone, arching an eyebrow at the missed notifications. A handful of texts, and a missed call.

The call was from Otabek.

_Shit._

Yuri thumbed back to the texts, ignoring Lilia and Yakov’s messages; no, he was not going to practice tomorrow, he had won the goddamn thing, and yes, he knew that the flight was at noon. Scrolling up past several congratulatory texts, he paused at the most recently sent message. Also from Otabek. Yuri opened it, heartbeat increasing slightly.  Short, clean, to the point. Otabek’s texts reflected his speech, as if every word cost him individually to send, or as if it were a competition to communicate with as few words as possible. The message read;

_Breakfast?_ And a few moments later.

_I heard of a cafe. They have coffee..._

The second text had been sent more than thirty minutes ago. Yuri stared at the timestamp a long time before sinking his face into the comforter with a frustrated sigh. Knowing Otabek, he had probably translated silence from the usually quick-responding Yuri as a request for space, and gone alone.

_Sorry._ He finally texted, and then, with a wince,

_Had to pack._

It was too short. It was vague. It was a lie, and Otabek would know as soon as he read it, and Yuri hated himself for that. But he was still too vulnerable after last night’s encounter. He couldn’t let this wayside his skating, or his mental state. He’d just gotten all that he’d ever wanted. And he couldn’t afford to lose it now.

So Yuri dressed, threw his things haphazardly in his suitcase, and then spent the remainder of his time finishing his earlier count of the ceiling dimples, gold medal tucked tightly inside the front pocket of his coat.

Saying goodbye was quicker for Yuri than the rest of his team, mostly due to the fact that he didn’t really care enough about anyone to say goodbye. And as last year, there weren’t many that initiated farewells with Yuri, either. Apparently, his abundant gentleness and charm had succeeded in scaring off the majority.  Yuri didn’t mind much. He watched, boredom becoming restlessness as one by one the teams filed through the lobby doors towards buses and taxis.

Somewhere in the midst of observing a curiously long and touchy hug between Mila and Sara Crispino, Yuri heard a voice that immediately turned his head. It was Otabek, clearly just back from riding, helmet under one arm as he thanked the American coach Celestino for his previous help in Detroit. Celestino’s broad range of emotion stood in stark contrast to the silent, stern-looking Kazakh. Celestino must have made a joke, because Otabek smiled and laughed. It was polite. And now that Yuri had seen the real thing, he knew it wasn’t real.

_How often does he do that? Put on a face for people._

Another man, older and balding, stood nearby, checking his phone. Yuri guessed by the colors of his tie and a vague handful of memories that he was Otabek’s Kazakh- and current- coach. He was quiet, too, and seemed impatient, eyes only leaving the screen in his hands to scan the door for transportation that hadn’t yet arrived.

Otabek turned, and their eyes met. Yuri froze immediately as if rooted to the spot, watching numbly as Ota respectfully shook hands with Celestino, extracting himself to walk towards Yuri in long, unhurried strides. He nodded once, face unreadable.

“You missed breakfast,” he said simply.

Yuri shrugged, trying for a tone of nonchalance as he tilted his head upwards to look at the skylight.

“I had things to do, and Yakov was riding my ass about packing for the flight. I got food here.”

The words sounded stiffer than he’d meant them, and when Yuri looked back, Otabek’s features had shifted. There was a nearly open hurt, but it was a fluid emotion, and when Yuri blinked, the Kazakh stood stone faced once again.

But the look in his eyes was one that the Yuri could have gone a lifetime without ever seeing. They were distant, wounded. An instant lump formed in Yuri’s throat. He wanted nothing more in that moment to take his words back. To tell Otabek when fun he’d had, how much he’d loved their skating, how he'd wished they'd had more time.

How much he’d loved the smell of the other man’s cologne the night before. How he'd wanted them closer.

Instead, he stood mutely, unable to move, until Otabek spoke again.

“Oh.” He said, softly. His gaze dropped to their shoes, brows furrowing. “I hope to see you again.”

Otabek turned then, walking slowly, less confidently than before. He passed his coach without a word, moving straight through the double doors and out to stand by the curb. Through his perephierals Yuri might have seen the balding man stare at him for a moment before joining his charge, but Yuri never took his eyes off of Otabek’s back long enough to really look. The Russian skater watched them as they took their luggage onto the shuttle, finally climbing on board before the bus rolled out of sight.

Otabek never looked back. Yuri never blinked. He felt winded, like someone had punched him in the gut. Actually, he wished someone had.

An indeterminate amount of time after the bus had disappeared from sight, Yuri was accosted by Victor. The older skater seemed somewhat more disheveled than he normally was, which was to say that he was wearing sunglasses _inside_ and.. smelled like Pickles. Yuri could smell it from a few feet away, and he turned to see that not only was Victor eating a freshly opened jar of pickles, but he was drinking the juice as well.

It dimly registered in Yuri’s mind that Victor was blatantly hungover.

Sluggishly turning his head back towards the door, Yuri felt moreso than saw Victor approach him.

“Yurio, are you alri—“

Wheeling around on one foot, Yuri took his water bottle and threw it with all his strength against the nearest wall in the lobby. The plastic bottle made an impressively loud bang, cap flying off to produce a spray of water before the bottle itself collapsed to the floor. Yuri was shaking. He looked at Victor, who was giving him an alarmed looked over the top of his sunglasses, one hand clutched protectively around the pickle jar while the other hovered self-protectively palm out in midair. Victor’s mouth opened in pure surprise, but before anything could come out, Yuri stalked away from him, desperately seeking a secluded spot in the now too-quiet lobby. Dozens of eyes followed him out.

Finding a small conference room just off the main area, Yuri slammed open the door and practically ran inside, backing up against a wall, breathing hard. Slowly, as if they’d been waiting for this moment, his legs gave out, sending him sliding to the floor. His pocket buzzed. Another text.

“Yura…”

Yuri dropped the phone to the floor, succumbing finally to full-body shivers. He hugged his knees to his chest and rested his forehead against them, fighting violently against the warmth pricking the corners of his eyes.

_Otabek.... Beka... I'm sorry, I don't know what to do... what do I do?_ He thought it. He didn't send it.

He was like that an hour later when Lilia came to claim him for the shuttle. She never asked, and until they made it to Russia, Yuri never spoke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--Fun fact! Pickle juice is actually an incredible remedy for a hangover. I was scandalized to find this out as an adult because it solved the persistent childhood mystery of why I was never allowed to throw out the jars after I’d eaten all the pickles… Tricksy parents. This is an old Russian remedy, but I think it hails from other cultures, as well….
> 
> You can always just use Gatorade. Or spicy foods. Or not drink! But…
> 
> Yeah, so pickle juice. The next chapter will not take so long! And will be more fluffy/less angsty. And longer. I prooooomise. This one was originally stacked with the next but I wanted to develop them individually.
> 
> Soooooo much love,  
> Sofiya


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Cracks knuckles* Screw you, writer's block/stress. I need sweet Otayuri chapters back in my life.
> 
> Oh, hey! *waves* You look good today. <3

______________________________________

The flight home was long, painful even. But Nikolai was there for Yuri even before the wheels of their plane hit the tarmac, waiting patiently next to the baggage claim. The sight of the old man always filled Yuri with a surge of emotions; pride, nostalgia, relief. He was the closest, and really the only, family that Yuri had left. The two were close, and always had been. Living with Lilia during the on-season had been a necessity for the sake of Yuri’s training, but it was good to be _home_.

Diving face-first into a hot potato-and-cheese pirozhki during the car ride home, Yuri savored the comfortable silence between them. There was so much to tell his dedushka, although he knew for a fact that the old man had read and watched everything available on his grandson’s rise to fame. Even so, he always asked, eager to listen to Yuri’s own account with deep, amused eyes.

This time, though, he seemed unnaturally focused on the road. Yuri let the silence continue on through the rest of his pirozhki and was about to ask when Nikolai spoke.

“Your mother called, Yuratchka.” He said, wincing.

Yuri felt the color drain from his face and looked down into his lap, hands reflexively balling up into fists. It was like someone had knocked the wind from him. The old man glanced sideways, letting out a pensive sigh and dialing down the radio. Outside, a fresh snowfall began to pepper the windshield, promising a good storm.

“I figured you wouldn’t… that you’d need time.” Nikolai said, gently. “She can call back later, Yuri. You don’t have to talk to her now.”

With that, he let the matter lie, humming distractedly to the saw of violins. He didn’t try to talk any further, and Yuri loved him for that. The snow had intensified by the time they made it to the base of their apartment building, and unloading the car made ample busy work in place of conversation. Yuri slunk to his room, throwing his things haphazardly into a corner and pulling back the curtains to watch the snow. He sat on the windowsill for a long moment, thinking, knuckles white in his lap.

His mother never called. She only called, in fact, about once a year, unless she wanted something out of Yuri. Not that the woman was cold-hearted. He said that statement to himself like a mantra, drawing up the walls that for years had kept him safe from her attempts to call him, safe from the empty spots at the dinner table, before Nikolai had quietly removed the two placemats that no longer held occupancy.

His father had died. There was no soft way about it. Faded into obscurity and then died. Yuri suspected of alcoholism, which he’d turned to after his mother had run off to Paris in the interest of her acting career.

Dedushka wouldn’t talk about it, not yet. Yuri had been nine. He could faintly recall, with closed eyes, the echoes of extra footsteps in the hallway, of his grandmother’s singing voice when he’d known her… she’d died when he was very young… of his mother’s arms, of the muffled sounds of his parents arguing bitterly in the living room.

These sort of memories, all of them, lived in a box in Yuri’s mind where he put painful, emotional things. He put them in a box and there they lived, with the lid shut tight, never to escape unless they cracked the top open and snuck into his nightmares.

Yuri would wake, eyes wet, drenched in a cold sweat and feeling like he’d just run a mile. And once his breathing had settled, he’d close the lid to the box again and stare at the ceiling until he fell back asleep. Memories, smells, sounds… occasionally he would take them out and let himself re-experience things. Try and make sense of what had happened. But in the end, it was always too much, and in the end, they always went back in.

It was his first line of defense. The only person to get so close in the last year, in fact… was Otabek. But the emotional connection they shared, the potential for pain.. it has crossed an invisible line. Yuri had to protect himself, and that was the one thing Yuri did systematically. Everyone he met either encountered walls, or, if they strayed too close, ended up in the box. It had been a ruthlessly efficient strategy. It had won him gold. By that logic, Otabek needed to go in.

But something in Yuri, a voice of hope, resisted fiercely, biting and clawing against reason. And for now, Yuri resisted along with it. He still couldn’t quite define his feelings for Otabek, but… he couldn’t give up on it. Not yet.

Yuri slipped silently down from the windowsill, easing back until he lay flat on his bed. For an unknown number of minutes, he watched the snow outside swirl down to earth, losing himself in the traceless patterns of snowflakes sat until he was inevitably drawn out by Nikolai’s love and a fresh batch of hot cakes.

\---

Weeks went by before he talked to Otabek again. He’d try, and fail, to start the conversation about once every few days. What would he say? How to begin?

It was Otabek, however, who broke the silence. Yuri returned to his phone one afternoon to scroll with trembling fingers through the new message. Hungrily his eyes raked over the line of text, and the Russian skater had to force himself to wait a socially acceptable amount of time before responding.

The messages between them were short and simple, at first. Otabek asked if Yuri preferred one brand of skates over the other, Yuri wondered out loud to Otabek about next year’s judges. Talking about skating was safe enough, easy even. Eventually they were able to talk about their daily goings-on again, and shortly thereafter the good-natured teasing and smack talk resumed.

But always in their conversations, there was an undercurrent. Something was between them. Something that neither could seem to bring up. It stunted their longer conversations, stole away some of the intimacy of their words.

It was uncomfortably different, and Yuri could neither escape nor ignore it. He wanted to ask questions, wanted to revisit things.

Time, however, had opened a gap that he now was afraid to jump. The unknown was staring him in the face, daring him to take the plunge. And each time, Yuri shied away from the edge, hating the feeling of his own insecurities. Maybe to venture nothing was better than to risk it all, and fail. So at every ‘talk to you soon’, Yuri would stare at the screen for a long moment, wondering if Otabek was doing the same, wishing that he could go back and rewrite something for which the ink had already dried.

Perhaps worst of all, he was fundamentally unsure of what to change.

These thoughts occupied Yuri nearly every morning as he sat in bed, waiting for his alarm to go off. Contrary to his image, the Russian skater actually slept early and followed in his grandfather’s habits; he liked mornings. Kicking off the covers and abandoning the pretense of sleep, Yuri pulled on his clothes and headed early to the rink. The air, characteristic to Moscow, was still pleasantly cold. Jumping on to the bus, Yuri stood by the door, hood up, and jammed headphones into his ears, scrolling aimlessly through his music and sinking himself into the zen of a skating mindset.

\--

It would have continued to be zen if practice had gone well. That being said, it didn’t. Triples became doubles or singles, his free leg wasn’t up high enough, his arms stayed in one spot for too long. During a sit spin, Yuri became dizzy enough that he actually had to step out of it, drawing looks- though no commentary- from his rinkmates.

He felt unfocused, and it had been this way since they’d returned to Russia.

Two different variations of his program existed already, but nothing felt quite right. There was no soul in the choreography, no passion, and this time, no ‘Agape’ to find. The most popular theme (through a majority vote from the people’s congress of Lilia Barakova) was ‘angel of the fire festival’, and while being fiery was certainly Yuri’s forte, the angel persona required  for the piece was utterly unreachable for him right now.  Lilia and Yakov noticed his errors during practice too, but their inquiries only brought spiteful responses from Yuri, and eventually they stopped asking, though Yuri knew they never stopped _watching_.

This continued for days, a week, then two weeks. Every morning Yuri would get up, massage dourly at a growing number of bruises, and in a foul mood, survey his gold medal. And every afternoon and evening found him returning yet again defeated by choreography, technical aspects, and generally the unattainable requirement of _having a soul_.

It was exhaustive. It was frustrating as hell. It was driving Yuri crazy.

 _Maybe Katsudon cursed the medal,_ he snorted, looking at it one afternoon.

But after two successive nights where he had nightmares of never being able to skate again, (one car accident, one shark attack), Yuri actually took the small, heavy disk and with sudden superstition hid it away in a desk drawer.

He came back from practice that day to find it not in his desk, but displayed on the mantle in the living room. Nikolai was incredibly proud of his grandson, and though Yuri didn’t know whether or not the old man knew what was going on, he had certainly noticed the changes in his grandson’s mood. Yuri gauged the move as a compromise between keeping pride in his accomplishments and simultaneously getting the damn thing out of his room, and silently praised his dedushka’s thoughtfulness.

Even so… as practices drug on with only marginal gain, Yuri slowly but surely was coming to resent the medal. As if it should be doing more for him.

After one particularly shitty session of practicing his step sequence, Yuri sat in the locker room, deep in the meditations of sulking.

Something was actually, legitimately _off_ with him. He could feel it, his rink-mates could see it. He could hear their whispers. It was embarrassing, and normally Yuri would have called them out in a fit of rage. Instead he pretended not to hear them. Pretended hard, though he thought loudly of the things he’d rather say to them. Because, damnably, they were _right_. There was something off in his technique. Nothing major, but minuscule technical details that had always been a specialty of his now seemed to escape him.

Fucking Victor. Fucking Yakov. Fucking Mila, and Katsudon, and fucking everyone else. He was too young to have peaked. His body was uninjured past the normal scrapes and bruises. Yuri picked himself up and flung himself into practice, at least managing to make the routine without any major flubs.

 During a break, Yuri darkly flopped down on a bench inside the locked room, fingers scrolling nimbly through his Instagram feed. His eyes caught a flash of motion, which drew him to a new post of Otabek’s. As if it weren’t the first thing he normally checked for. It was a practice video, like a trailer for the season’s upcoming routines. The internet in the rink was tortuously slow, but second by second, the video loaded before Yuri’s eager eyes.

It was short, just a quick clip of Otabek running through the warmup motions of a new step sequence.. his short program, perhaps?  Something fast and low, with movements that capitalized on Ota’s sturdy frame and strength. Yuri watched him execute an neat triple axel, skating backwards to turn into a spread eagle, arms outstretched in a powerful, almost bold way. But when he zoomed past the camera, Yuri could clearly see Otabek’s face. There was something in his eyes. Something missing. Something that Yuri was intimately aware of, because he’d been living it every day for the last few weeks. There was no inspiration on the way that the Kazakh skater moved. Precision, yes. But no life.

The tightness in his chest that Yuri had come to know well by now when he thought of Ota returned with a vengeance. It started at his collar bones and worked its way down until even his ribs seemed to hurt. He watched the video a few more times before shoving leaving practice his phone deep into a pocket, kicking the closest locker viciously on his way out of the room.

Taking long strides, Yuri announced over his shoulder that he was leaving early and, surprisingly, no one fought him. Which was almost worse.

Once outside the too-still air of the rink, Yuri hit the nearest sidewalk and started off. But he wasn’t really doing so with a purpose. Yuri’s feet moved and the scenery changed before him, but he was drifting. Walking and thinking around in Moscow, his hometown, _his_ city, lost in thought. Thoughts floated through his mind, uninvited. He wanted to be better. He wanted to feel better. He’d like to walk around these streets with someone one day, maybe the way that Victor and Katsudon did.

And, once he’d deemed that enough time had passed and everyone had left the rink, he returned.

The ice inside the rink was still thick with after-impressions of the skaters who had just previously occupied it. It was silent, almost unbearably so, and though he wasn’t cold, Yuri shuddered as he glided out onto the snow-white plane.

 Taking a deep breath, Yuri cleared his mind, seeking that feeling of zen again. He needed to try something different. Mentally, Yuri put himself back in Barcelona’s rink with Ota, back t the careless, foolish flight that was their game with the cork. Yuri closed his eyes, reached down and felt the ice with his fingertips. Involuntarily, a little smirk rose to his lips. He could almost remember the sound of Otabek’s voice, testing out a few words in Russian. It was beautiful, and painful.

Somewhere in his mind, a door opened. He started to skate, keeping his eyes closed until it became dangerous. When he opened them, he didn’t try to take in the rink around him, but willed the scene to once more be that night after the GPF. It was like putting pen to paper for the first time, writing a symphony in motions and spins and tight, controlled breaths. Actual work, actual inspiration was coming back to him. Fast and fierce it came, jumping choreography and fluid, almost fervent motions, done in an utterly music-less silence. It was appearing as if from nowhere, flowing through Yuri’s arms and legs, parting his body from the ice only to reunite him with new, fantastic movements, using his whole being like a medium. It was unlike he’d ever skated before.

From nowhere, an intrusive thought slipped Ota’s laughter into the stillness of the air. He wasn’t there, and yet Yuri could have sworn he _heard_ it, like Otabek was in another room. Yuri’s feet slipped out from under him and he went down hard, one hand catching the surface as his other arm busted open his elbow on the ice. The split was instant, the fall was hard, all without warning.

But Yuri didn’t cry, and he didn’t tell.

Slowly, painfully, he picked himself up, blood still dripping down his arm, and closed his eyes. Raising his arm, feeling the faint warmth trickle down one side, he pushed off and gathered speed. And in he went again, this run-though just as fast with the first, each spin landed with a flourish, both hands up, eyes trained on the lights above. He was nearly flawless. He was beautiful. Here, at last, the Ice Tiger had returned.  

Yuri performed the sequence again. And again. His temples throbbed. His lungs were tight.

He felt brilliantly, incredibly alive.

The program was still without music. Still without a theme. But it was something, and it was the first something he’d had in a long while. Yuri smiled down at his skates.

He’d be back tomorrow.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Yuri turned towards the edge of the rink and skated off the ice, finally looking up… and almost tripped at the sight of Victor. How long had he been standing there? Yuri had been focusing so hard on the ice that he hadn’t noticed anything, much less the older Russian, who quietly watched him like a ghost from the side of the rink. The thought of being watched while he was unaware instantly annoyed Yuri and made him want to lash out at Victor like he was so often wont to do. But for once, Yuri had no words to say. He glided silently up to the edge of the rink, only noticing when he was close that both of Victor’s hands were holding something.

Each hand held a white rag. Victor wordlessly handed him one with a small, almost gentle nod. Yuri prepared for the lecture, the stupid jokes, the air-headed commentary. But the silence shocked him. Victor didn’t say a word. His face was intense, a mixture of sadness and a strange, pensive understanding.

 Those ice blue eyes stared into him with such intensity that they seemed to go straight through Yuri, who suppressed an involuntary shudder. Victor’s expression shifted slowly to be knowing in a way that seemed both weary and almost content, as if Yuri had confided something in him.

… _Had_ he?

Yuri didn’t know quite what just happened. It was aggravatingly commonplace lately. But a powerful feeling in his gut said that whatever was going on, Victor was perfectly attuned to it. Yuri’s grip tightened on the rag and he pressed it to his elbow, the red a vivid stain on perfect white. Victor took the other rag in his hand and stepped past the younger skater and out, skates barely making any sound as he started to clean up the blood that dotted the ice. He never looked back.

Yuri watched him for a long moment in the perfect, hollow silence of the rink that was anything but empty for him now.

 _Thank you,_ he thought towards Victor’s back, and left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there it is. <3 As I've hinted earlier in the comments, I'm trying to drag myself back out of this pit of stress I've been swimming around in lately, and this does the soul a lot of good. AND, as a bonus apology, there's a one-shot Otayuriu fluff/background from Otabek's POV coming to you soon! 
> 
> Fun fact:  
> Previously, the 23rd of February was celebrated as the official Soviet Army Day in the Soviet Union. In modern-day Russia, it is famous as Men’s Day. This is a holiday where men usually receive the gifts from women. I wonder if Yuri knows this? ; ]
> 
> I love you to the Moon and back (to a telephone booth in west Wales),  
> Sofiya

**Author's Note:**

> It's finally up! Hugs all around, I'll try and post again in a few days. <3


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